mrgruntbucket Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Hello All, I just thought I would let you know about a website I am working on www.arthursletters.com I have over 120 letters home from Arthur Joseph Dease, a volunteer ambulance driver with the French Red Cross, covering the period 1915 to 1919. The letters are all to his mother Lady Emily Dease of Celbridge, Ireland. They were prolific letter writers, I also have much correspondence covering Arthur's travels around the world from the 1890's to when he volunteered in January 1915. I am adding letters most days and will be adding scans and hopefully cross referencing key events and people mentioned by Arthur. He was an educated and well travelled man and certainly speaks his mind on many of the current affairs of the day. I hope others may find the site of interest and maybe useful for research etc. I would welcome any comments or even offers of help perhaps, some of the place names and names can be hard to decipher - legible hand writing wasn't his strong point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgruntbucket Posted 13 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 13 February , 2012 I just thought I would post an update. Thanks to the people that have looked at my site so far. I have added many more letters and will be adding them each day. It is building into a good resource for anybody that wants to see about life behind the trenches, about another side of WW1 away from the trenches but still heavily involved with blood and heartache of this pointless conflict. Although Arthur was still at the frontline and talks about sleeping in dugouts with the rats, sleeping in cellars and the shelling and bombing by the Germans, being caught in a gas attack although he had forgotten his gas mask. And in the next breath he is tucking into a hamper from Fortnum & Mason! I feel that Its also a good slice of social history recorded as it happened, its obvious that Arthur changed very quickly as a person and surprised himself with his ability to cope with the horrors he encountered every day. Thats my rant over with! Thanks for looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CGM Posted 13 February , 2012 Share Posted 13 February , 2012 Thank you so much for setting up the website. I looked at it this morning, read the first 3 letters of 1915 and already I am hooked. Arthur's application at school may have been "indifferent" but obviously when something is important to him he can apply himself very well! All my interest in the Great War stems from wanting to know what it was like to be there and his letters are full of exactly the sort of detail I really want to know. Looking forward to reading lots more. CGM By the way, when he went to buy a souvenir and oilskin (Wednesday 10th Feb 1915) do you think he meant a sou'wester and oilskin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgruntbucket Posted 13 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 13 February , 2012 Thank you so much for the words of encouragement. I'm glad you find it interesting. And many thanks for the "proof reading" that is exactly the help I need. After reading Arthurs handwriting for so long I still stuggle with some words, but I will recheck that one, I am sure you are right! I try to upload 2 letters a day, but one I transcribed yesterday was about 1600 words so it took longer than usual .... Thanks again Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgruntbucket Posted 19 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 19 February , 2012 I have added many more letters to my site www.arthursletters.com . I still have almost 100 to add but there is some good new content since my last posting on here for example...... "we had 3 or 4 volunteers & 3 or 4 chauffeurs gassed, most of them have been yest. or are being today, evacuated, so we shall be very short, I hope no more go! I don't know when they will be right! It makes one blind for time being, sort of tear gas, mustard gas they call it. We have new sort of masks & we had to put them on going through a village yest. morng., they are better than the old sort." April 1918 and "My new years eve night & new years morning I spent in a dugout lying on a stretcher on floor with a wounded man on one over me, rats playing about all over, shells bursting all round & shaking the place, so it was not much to boast of; sort of shelling out the old year & in the new. Next morning 2 burst close to entrance & threw mud & stuff into the dugout just where we were sitting round the fire or stove rather. Following morning at about same hour one burst & knocked in all the entrance & one of our fellows was hit on head by debris, but none the worse much! " January 1917. I will continue to add letters and also add photos etc and some sort of index to place names and people etc. to aid research. Thanks for passing by! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgruntbucket Posted 22 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 22 February , 2012 As I have added many more letters and pages to my site www.arthursletters.com I have now added a site search facility. Just enter your search query in the search box at the top of any page. As I add more place names and events etc. etc. this will be of much use for research. Many thanks to all those who have visited so far, I am adding letters everyday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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